


A Knight in Stolen Armor

by TheScribblcr



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempts at trying to be sci-fi, Canon-Typical Violence, Heists, rich people parties
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 08:18:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17956952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheScribblcr/pseuds/TheScribblcr
Summary: Peter Nureyev is a master thief. Swashbuckling, daring thefts aren't too far off from his everyday life, but this theft is different. What began as a job to steal a few artifacts unfolds into a massive plot to turn the inhabitants of a planet to ash. At the center of it all is a private eye, just as daring and calculating as he is, also trying to figure out what these artifacts will be used for in the end. Nureyev had to set aside the dream-- the title of being a hero-- once for the sake of his fabled home. Now, he has to put on armor he doesn’t have in order to save Mars. (A canon divergent of Peter’s misadventures during season one of the Penumbra. Written for the Penumbra Mini Bang 2019!)





	A Knight in Stolen Armor

**Author's Note:**

> Art completed by [Sponched](http://twitter.com/Sponched)

**Checking In**

 

_The rain comes gently, washing over the towering hotel as you walk toward the glass doors of the entrance. A neon purple sign attached to the red brick of the hotel advertises ‘The Penumbra.’ You look up at the building, you’re not sure how high it goes, but you immediately stop thinking about it as the bellhop takes your raincoat. A bell dings as you walk in and your luggage is promptly loaded onto the appropriate trolley. Music fades in, soft as it floats around you._

 

_The Concierge is kind and welcoming as they greet you and show you to where the rooms begin….and never seem to end. There is one room in particular that catches your eye as you walk further and further down the hall; footsteps muffled by the colorful carpet underneath. The room number is golden in color, pressed proudly to the dark wood. “K 13” it reads. The Concierge explains that this is the room of the Master Thief, a person who has stolen many treasures, riches beyond comprehension, and a single heart. Somehow, you’re able to turn the knob, the door opening with a crisp click._

 

_Looking in, you are overcome with a sense of love and loss, and a fiery, fierce feeling that required adventure for it to be quenched._

  


* * *

 

**The Knight has a Desert Standoff**

 

The Martian desert stretched on as far as the eye could see. Wind blew dust and sand across the rusted orange of the plains; the sand making a little tinkling noise as it tapped against the metal of the cars that left fresh tire tracks in their wake. A thief, a detective, a woman with a voice raspy as the gusts that blew past, and two gun bearing grunts stood in a circle. The thief could feel the needling sting of lasers aimed at his forehead.

 

Peter Nureyev’s eyes flicked over to Juno Steel’s; body unmoving, stiff, and taut. Detective Steel wore a wide eyed expression, his lips poised to say, to scream, a denial. Slowly, Nureyev raised his hands in a show of surrender, gaze going back to the assistants with blasters in their large hands.

 

“Juno,” Nureyev swallowed, trying to remain poised and calm. This was hard to do with one of the assistants edging closer toward Juno, just out of the detective’s field of vision. “Get in the car.. Please.”

This was a warning, a plea to go, to leave the thief in the dust if only it would keep Juno safe. Saints above, why did Nureyev have this urge to keep Juno safe?

 

Peter saw Juno shake his head, say something inaudible against the winds whipping around them, and close his eyes. The detective swayed on his feet for a few moments before stilling in his spot and crying out in pain as his nose started to bleed. Nureyev lurched forward, toward the detective to take him into his arms. To move so suddenly was a mistake. One of the assistants lunged forward to make a grab at the thief. Juno grabbed for the grunt’s blaster as they passed him, aiming the barrel at his now bleeding eye.

  
For some reason, Miasma, the woman who stood before them, didn’t seem perturbed. Her mouth twitched, yes, but her stony face gave away nothing. Miasma and Juno watched each other carefully, calculating and cold. Juno cupped his bleeding nose with his hand, smudging red onto his face. Peter didn’t understand how, but Juno knew something. In any case, it’d shaken Juno to his very core.

 

“.....Fine,” Miasma’s words felt as if the sliced through the dust and wind. “Put the thief in the car too. We’re going.”

  


* * *

 

**The Knight and the Mouth of Rock**

 

This is how Peter Nureyev and Juno Steel found themselves shoulder to shoulder in the car, as cramped as tuna brick in a can. Cold bit into Peter’s skin as the barrel of a blaster dug into his temple. The vice-like grip of one of the burly assistants around his hand told him that he wasn’t going anywhere. Peter felt Juno’s stress and worry radiate outward. Carefully, he placed a hand over Juno’s and squeezed gently.

 

“Don’t give up on me. We’ll make it through. I know we will.”

 

Peter wore a tired smile on his face. Meanwhile, his thumb stroked over the back of Juno's hand. Warm eyes searched his own for a moment before the detective's lips stretched into a softened smile. A smile that could light up the galaxy; a smile that Peter would bring down planets for.. A smile that meant Juno trusted him somehow after all that he’s done to get these blasted artifacts to Miasma.

 

But this tiny oasis of joy in the desert would not last for long. Peter and Juno turned their heads to look through the windshield of the car and at the gaping, craggy mouth of a cave. Peter didn’t recognize this rock formation from his brief glance at Martian landmarks and well known buildings. There were two strange markings scratched into the rust red dirt on the arch above; ancient Martian, obviously, but what did it mean? Miasma would know from her life’s work as a Martian history and culture professor, but there had to be more to it.

 

The mouth of the cave swallowed the car whole, darkness descending on the group as they drove deeper and away from the harsh, burning light of the sun reflecting against the sand. Lights, dim and flickering, slowly came on with each passing mile.

 

“We’re here,” Miasma’s croaking voice cut through the silence and the soft thrum of the engine.

 

Peter made no motion to move, his hand holding onto Juno’s all the while. His grip wasn’t enough to cause pain, but it was enough to get his point across that he wouldn’t let go, even if one of the assistants blasted his hand off.

 

“I don’t have time for games, boys,” Miasma sighed, snapping her spindly, thin fingers. The assistants sandwiching them on either side moved quickly. In one swift motion, the assistants brought out black bags and covered Peter’s and Juno’s heads, obscuring their vision with thick, smothering cloth. The thief made a strangled noise of discomfort as the assistant bound the bag with rope a little too tightly, only growing louder when he was yanked out of the car by his shoulder.

 

“Juno!” Peter called out. He wasn’t sure if he could be heard, the cloth was too heavy on his mouth. His heart thudded in his chest. Every fiber in his body screamed to escape, to be able to see, to run, to get to Juno--

 

A hand descended on his shoulder, gripping into his skin like talons clenching prey. Peter flinched from underneath the dark shroud, wanting to turn his head away from the breath that smells like dust and decay, from the harsh whisper in his ear.

 

“Did you really think you could take the Egg away from me? From the one who’s been watching you on Mars from the _beginning_?” Miasma hissed.

 

And in a louder voice, making Peter flinch because the sound went straight into his ear, “ASSISTANT! PUT THE DETECTIVE IN THE OTHER ROOM.”

 

Stumbling footsteps, falling in an uneven gait.. Those must have been Juno’s as he was dragged away. That shuffling sound was becoming more and more faint. Wherever Peter was going would be very, very far.

  


* * *

 

**A Knight in Shackles**

 

Cold metal kissed Peter’s skin, steel clamps biting down into his wrists as he was bound to the chair. Peter wasn’t sure how much time passed since he was put in the chair, assistants were coming in and out to give him water or to begin the bruising process anew on his face, legs, and stomach. His nose itched, dried blood caking his nostrils and chin. He couldn’t see through one of his eyes very well, a well placed cut on his brow wept blood into his field of vision.

 

The only way for Peter to mark time was to listen to Juno’s screams down the hall: starting off as bitten off, as if Juno didn’t want to be heard, then louder, as if it was ripped from his throat. Miasma’s voice, angry and scratchy, was barely heard over the pained wails. Juno’s suffering eventually fell into silence, what Peter presumed to be him going unconscious from pain. Those sounds make him feel sick. This would continue as a nauseating cycle for what felt like aeons; until it was Miasma that darkened the doorway to the room where he was held.

 

She had a stack of cards clutched in her skeletal fingers. Her mouth was pressed into a thin, unamused line as it always was. The cards made a ‘smack!’ sound as Miasma thwacked them onto the table. The sound startled Peter, who was only then able to find the smallest wink of sleep. He sniffed in disdain, despite his position being open enough for her to sink her fists into the still healing cuts on his skin. In defiance, Peter raised his chin as he looked up at her. The woman placed her hands on the table, fingers splayed against the metal.

 

“Are we going to play a game of Rangian Street Poker, Miasma? Go Holo-Fish perhaps?” Despite his airy, dismissive tone, Peter was tense underneath the metal binds. Would he receive the same torture? Or would this be the moment that Miasma shatters his world with news confirming why Juno was suddenly so deathly silent down the hall?

 

“Thief, as much as I would like to hear the sound of your heart not beating, I am here to test something. On you,” Miasma set the cards aside, near the far end of the table.

 

He watched as Miasma left the room for a moment, only to return with a metal cart with devices on it: a little Earth analog television connected with colorful wires to a panel with switches and knobs, some glinting, sharp probes resting beside them, and another mess of wires with pads at the end of them. Casually, as if she was laying out the forks and spoons and knives for a dinner setting, she placed the television on the table, alongside the tangle of wires and switches connected to it.

 

“There is something in Steel that I want,” She spoke, turning the machine on and stilling to listen to it hum.

 

Miasma patted her fingertips lightly on the pads, seeing if they were still sticky. The equipment seemed worn. This wasn’t the first time she’s used it, nor the first time she’s clawed her way into getting what she asked for. There were drops of dried blood on one of the pads.

 

Peter swallowed, looking from the dried blood spatters to Miasma; whose mouth was drawn into a thin line as she poked and prodded at the switches and buttons on the panel. It was strange that Miasma would use something so...analog. There were torture devices that looked much more streamline, and Peter would know; there was a nauseating fascination in the brief time he looked at the array of gadgets that Cecil Kanagawa had.

 

Miasma continued in her dry, crackling voice, “He swallowed the last Lassonionic Capsule on Mars. I’m going to be using you to replicate it since I can’t tear it out of his skull without destroying it.”

 

There was a look in Miasma’s eyes; one that was crazed, but calculated. Peter didn’t want to dwell on how many times she’s had that look in her eye as she did horrendous things to get what she wanted.

 

***

 

Peter braced for pain, for the clobbering fists of the silent assistants, but they never came. Instead, Miasma left the analog machine whirring day in, day out; reading _something._ The cards that were once in a neat stack next to the machine would be placed in front of him, face up, by an assistant. With a stubby finger, the assistant tapped at the face of the cards for Peter to look at; just as Miasma ordered him to read. He didn’t quite understand why he had to read cards, but as soon as he looked at the colored shapes, a needling pain bit just behind his eyes.

 

A sharp cry was heard down the hall, and the needling pain that Peter felt intensified. He grit his teeth and dug his fingers into the arms of the chair. So whatever Juno was doing must directly affect him, Peter thought as his body sagged with the ceasing of the pain.

 

This testing would happen in an endless cycle, further blurred by the lack of marking for time. He hadn’t seen the butterscotch colored Martian sun in so long. Peter was staring at the rust colored walls of the cave room he was in, lost in the memory of running around in sandals in his youth; trying to follow the smell of pandesal to whoever was making it that morning, almost being able to hear the puttering of the more worn down Brahma cars down the street-- when Miasma slammed the metal door open.

 

Turning his head, eyes disinterested and face bearing a numbed expression, Peter looked to her spindly fingers gripping her clipboard like talons. From the way Miasma looked at her notes and then to him, it seemed like the tests would resume again. Instead, she set her clipboard down slowly on the table. Her other hand was reaching inside her pocket and produced a small vial. Miasma’s mouth was pressed into a thin line as it always was, but Peter could see that line getting more taught as her fingers tightened around the glass.

 

Peter’s confusion only grew as she took a seat across from him and emptied the contents of the vial. The small, lilac colored stone from the vial clattered onto the table. He looked from the stone to her, wanting to ask for clarification. Miasma spoke in her sandpaper-y voice anyway.

 

“Based on the data that I’ve gathered from the detective and...my ever shrinking window of options, I’ve decided to try to synthesize the Lassonionic Capsule,” Miasma’s mouth curved up in a smile, and Peter wasn’t sure if he ever wanted to see her mouth make that insidious shape ever again. “Let’s see if it works.”

 

The strangest sensation filled Peter’s head after Miasma placed the lilac stone on her blue tongue. Words that he remembers saying swirl in Peter’s head, Juno’s voice joining in on them:

 

“You’re throwing me under again, just like you did with the Kanagawas,” echoed Juno, hurt written in his face and seeping into his voice.

  
“‘Like the Kanagawas?’ Really? You have no idea how much I did to keep the Kanagawas _off_ of you, Juno..”

**Author's Note:**

> Art created for this Mini Bang was created by [Clip](http://twitter.com/sponched)
> 
> My twitter can be found [here](http://twitter.com/TheScribblcr)


End file.
